I tell you what, I am almost torn on this talk today about New Zealand pulling out of the Paris climate agreement.

The one we’re signed up to along with a truckload of other countries - and which US president Donald Trump has just exited.  

In fact, here are the numbers: we are one of out of 193 countries that are signed up members. That’s 193 out of the 197 countries that there are in the world.  

But Donald Trump is not having any more of it. And talk about winds of change in the White House, there could be winds of change here too, with David Seymour sniffing an opportunity and saying that the ACT Party could very well go into the next election with a policy to get us out of the Paris agreement too.  

Here’s what he’s saying: "There is a wider question of whether the government of New Zealand should be committed to the Paris Accord when half of the world appears to be pulling out of it, anyway.”  

Which isn’t really correct, but that’s politics.  

Speaking of, maybe David Seymour is just doing what Sir John Key used to do all the time: put an idea out there as if we are one big focus group.  

Somehow, I suspect there might be a bit more to what David Seymour is saying. And I bet there will be no shortage of people who would actually vote for this kind of approach.  

And this is where I get to the bit about me being torn.  

I reckon —in fact I know— there would be no shortage of people who would vote for this kind of policy. I know there would be no shortage, because I can actually understand their thinking.  

It is very easy to understand their way of thinking that New Zealand is a tiny cog in the climate change machine and, really, what difference can we actually make?  

And then there's the belief that the big polluting nations aren't doing their bit. So if they’re not, why should we bother? Which I get.  

The other side of the coin, though, for me, is that the United States isn’t necessarily the be-all and end-all. Which is what former climate change minister Nick Smith was getting at when he spoke on Newstalk ZB this morning.  

He says when it comes to climate change you have to take a long-term view, and you can't have politicians flip-flopping on policy.  

He says our free trade agreement with the European Union has specific references to climate change and we would be nuts to pull out of the Paris agreement.  

He says China and Australia are part of it and, if we did pull out, there could be serious trade and economic consequences for New Zealand.  

And this is the point where I stop being torn and come to the conclusion that we have to stay signed up to it. Whether or not we think we can make much of a difference.  

You might think ‘well that’s a lot of time and money and effort to make little or no difference’. But is it worth jeopardising trade relationships for?  

I don’t think it is.   

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